Jeremy Vine Smith

A CLOSE colleague has paid a touching tribute to a pioneering funeral director who “refused to adhere to the rules”.

Jeremy Vine Smith, owner of eco-conscious Green Endings, passed away from a stroke aged 62 at the end of March. He operated his company out of a garden shed mortuary in Tufnell Park and was remembered for the care he took helping to organise people’s funerals – but also for his wicked sense of humour.

His former colleague and friend, Paul Farrell, has now taken over the premises in Oakford Yard and is organising the funeral.

“You’re never ready. It’s even more strange he’s here,” he said.

“Thinking about him in a body bag, coming down here feet first. I did take a moment and go on my own to the fridge and open the bag. And I thought, ‘This is too weird, Jeremy. The amount of people you’ve put in this fridge, and now you’re on the top shelf.’

“When someone dies, it’s like a slice comes off you forever. I don’t think you’re ever the same again.”

When Green Endings opened in the early 2000s, there were protests about how close the facilities were to people’s back gardens. But it has since established itself as a well-used funeral parlour, often for families who want to use cardboard or wicker coffins.

Mr Smith had studied at the University of Oxford before becoming a priest.

Later in life, he took over his partner John’s undertakers when he died of liver disease. He then became a celebrant for Roslyn Cassidy, the original owner of Green Endings, and took over from her in 2009 when she moved out of the country.

The garden shed ­mortuary in Tufnell Park when Green Endings was there

The firm had offices in Twickenham, where he lived, and in Fortess Road – close to the mortuary in the backyard of Oakford Road.

Stella Alesbury, Mr Smith’s bookkeeper since 2004, said: “He was an extremely quirky and lovely guy and it was a very sad end to a very colourful career, a very colourful life.

“He ran a really good funeral but it was a bit of a rollercoaster getting there. Everything was done on a lastminute.com basis.”

She added: “The first time I went to do his accounts, I ended up helping to build a coffin.

“He managed to get you to do things that you hadn’t signed up to, but not in a manipulative way.”

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Mr Farrell, who worked for him from 2016 to 2019 as a funeral conductor, said: “Everything about Jeremy was flowers and champagne and flamboyance. Like Monet, or Van Gogh when he cut his ear off, Jeremy was off that ilk.”

He added: “He wouldn’t wash up for weeks [at home].

“My wife and I would go round for lunch, and he’d answer the door covered in flour.

“And there’d be this literally mound of plates, pots and things, like in a comic. But he would have made the croissants and they were delicious. Normal life for Jeremy was just difficult.”

They did some “amazing things” together, he said, including shepherding a grieving son on a busy road as he pedalled his dad on a bicycle hearse for 45 minutes to the crematorium.

The pair remained lifelong friends, even after Mr Farrell left his job. “He was extraordinary, generous and just so clever.

“He adored funerals and adored families and what he did for them,” he said.

Mr Farrell has now taken over the premises in Oakford Yard with his firm and will also be organising Mr Smith’s funeral. He has, however, no instructions to work from in this case, as Mr Smith – despite the job they did together – never spoke about his own mortality.

The funeral will be on May 20 at 11.20am at Mortlake Crematorium in Kew.